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WALL STREET EXPERIENCED another historic Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average started the week by plunging 777 points -- its largest point drop ever -- after Congress failed to pass a $700 billion bailout plan geared toward getting the country's teetering financial-services sector back on solid footing.

Investors are probably looking at their account statements on Tuesday with dismay. No doubt the Dow's biggest percentage decrease since the markets opened after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks caused the balances of millions of retirement accounts to shrink. That's tough to look at on paper, especially when layoffs are on the uptick and food and gas prices are still high.

It appears lawmakers on Capitol Hill are furiously doing some backroom brokering to reach a deal, maybe by the end of the week. While you wait out that vote, it's a perfect time to do a quick check-up on your 401(k). These situations often reveal if you have the stomach to tolerate chaotic ups and downs, which may mean a tinkering of your asset allocation is in order. However, as stocks and funds are unfairly beaten down it also presents a situation that sounds sweet to many investors' ears: a buying opportunity.

The key is figuring out which camp you belong in and not making any knee-jerk reactions until you figure that out. A rash decision is often what leads to people buying high and selling low, the cardinal sin of investing. Indeed, if you haven't yet made any moves in your account during the last year, no Hail Mary this late in the game is going to get you back in the money.

What financial planners often suggest in these situations is matching your portfolio's performance with your ability to tolerate risk. Being able to stomach big swings in your account balance will probably vary depending on your age. In short, if you're in your 20s and staring at an account that has lost a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars, don't worry because age is on your side. You will have decades to make up the lost ground. That is, as long as you continue to contribute to your 401(k).

For those of you nearing retirement a 777-point drop is certainly a wake-up call. If you can't stomach seeing your balance experience wild swings, it may mean your asset allocation is a little too aggressive for your tastes. It would be smart to sit down with an advisor to see how you can preserve your principal by upping your fixed-income quotient or adding in alternative asset classes that don't run in lock-step with equities.

On the other hand, there are some investors who see opportunity in dips like the one that occurred on Monday. When the market turns south like that it doesn't discriminate. Every sector gets whacked. That means there are stocks and funds out there that are trading at unjustifiable lows. What investors need to weigh is whether Monday's drop was an anomaly that will soon be erased by a rally -- and based on Tuesday's upbeat open it looked like that was happening already -- or a sign of prolonged financial troubles that are quickly reaching across the globe.

We think it's more to do with that first scenario, at least with the stocks below, which means that once Congress passes a bailout plan it could help these shares regain all the ground they lost. There's nothing like a sense of clarity to give investors confidence. The passage of a comprehensive rescue package would go a long way toward doing that.

Below are two tables. The first lists a sample of stocks that dropped 8% or more on Monday. These stocks are highly rated by Morningstar, have decent earnings prospects and are trading on the cheap. In other words, they could represent buying opportunities. On the other table are funds that own these stocks, at least as of their last SEC filings. A single position probably won't pop a fund's performance that much. But in a disappointing year like 2008 every little bit of return helps. And it's a cheaper and less risky option than buying the individual shares.

A sampling of stocks that lost 8% or more during Monday's trading session